and the water rolls down the drain
by vega-de-la-lyre
Summary: Kirk/McCoy/Chapel. // “McCoy,” Kirk says. “There is a cow eating your plums. Since when have you had cows?”


this is the story of the road that goes to my house and what ghosts there do remain  
and all the troughs that run the length and breadth of my house and the chickens how they rattle chicken chains  
and we'll remember this when we are old and ancient though the specifics might be vague  
and i'll say your camisole was a sprightly light magenta when in fact it was a nappy bluish grey

**july, july!**; the decemberists.

* * *

"McCoy," Kirk says. "There is a cow eating your plums. Since when have you had cows?"

McCoy shades his eyes with his hand, squinting into the morning sunlight. "Not my cow," he says. "We haven't kept livestock for ages. It's the neighbour's cow. Damn thing always gets out."

"Can I chase it away?" Kirk says.

McCoy turns a bemused look on him. "Do you want to chase it away?"

Kirk subsides. "No," he says.

"Go chase the damn cow if you want to, Jim," McCoy says.

"We are," Christine says pensively into her glass of lemonade, "a long way from the Enterprise."

Kirk goes thumping down the porch steps and across the front yard, hollering and waving his arms. McCoy groans, and Christine puts her bare feet in his lap.

"You asked him here," she says.

"Well," he says, "if he gave you that look, do you really think you could say no?"

"Point," she says.

He opens his battered copy of Steinbeck to one dog-eared page and then looks back up at her. "Do cows even eat plums?"

Christine taps her fingers on her glass; the ice in it rattles. "Are you going to go argue with the cow?"

* * *

The three of them are all too lazy to make lunch so they take whatever they can hustle from the kitchen – stale crackers and raisins and an inexplicable tin of cookies – out to eat under the oak in the front yard.

"Still hungry," Kirk says when they're done. Christine, trying to sleep, ignores him; the sun's heat is like a great heavy blanket above her and she is sure that she couldn't get up now even if she tried.

"Then do something about it," McCoy says. Christine opens her eyes. His head is in Kirk's lap, and he frowns up at him impressively.

"I miss replicated food," Kirk says.

"Then write Starfleet about it," McCoy says. "I'm sure they'll set you right up. I couldn't really give a damn."

"Your house," Kirk says. "Your kitchen. I wouldn't dare interfere."

"Right," McCoy says.

"You know, I was going to use this vacation time to do something constructive," Christine says morosely. "Write a novel. Visit my family. Buy some shoes. Interact with people who didn't serve on the Enterprise."

"That would require getting up and _moving_, though," Kirk points out, and she nods and closes her eyes again, the sun pulsing red and warm against her eyelids.

McCoy sighs and sits up.

Beside her, she can hear the crunch and rustle of grass as Kirk rolls onto his stomach.

"You know, McCoy," he says thoughtfully, "those hedges look like they could use some trimming."

"No," McCoy says. "No and no."

He stands, brushing nonexistent dirt and crumbs off himself.

"I'm going to the store," he says. "Before we all die of malnutrition. Both of you stay put and don't burn the place down."

Christine opens one eye. Kirk waggles his eyebrows at her.

* * *

"Ow," Kirk says. "Ow. Fucking ow. You could be a little gentler, you know."

Patiently, Christine continues disinfecting the angry red scratches that run up his forearms. He is sitting on the bathroom counter and she is standing between his legs, his knee pressing into her hip.

"You could be a little less stupid, you know," she says, but she says it under her breath. He huffs in a pained gasp and kicks out one foot when she touches a particularly deep gouge. "What, was that your first time handling a pair of shears? I thought you were a country boy, Captain Kirk."

He gives her a look. "A rebellious country boy," he says. "The sexy kind that slunk around tipping cows and setting up stills in barns and seducing the innocent daughters of upstanding local farmers, not the kind that actually did any work."

"Just your garden variety delinquent, then," she says. She turns the tap on and splashes the water a little to rinse away the splotches of his blood that smear the white porcelain, and she suddenly remembers his blood dripping scarlet on the floor of the sickbay after a botched diplomatic mission and him lying grey and still under her hands, and there is a tremble in her outstretched fingers.

"Christine," Kirk says.

She presses the palms of her hands flat against the cool stone of the counter. He reaches past her to shut the tap off.

"'M okay," she says. She looks up and meets her eyes in the mirror; her face is pale and she shakes her head, blinks her eyes wide and surprised. Kirk lifts a few stray stands of blonde hair away from her face, and she leans her cheek into his hand and breathes.

"I think," she says quietly, "that putting us all on forced leave was maybe a good idea."

He kisses her. "We all need a mental health break, once in a while," he says, and cocks his head and smiles to forestall the acid remark that's rising to her lips. "Some admittedly more than others, yeah."

McCoy, who is standing by the door to the bathroom, clears his throat. They both look at him.

"Supper's almost ready," he says.

* * *

McCoy is actually a respectable cook, if not a wildly inventive one. Christine chews slowly and absently, and considers the pattern on the bone china.

McCoy drops a hand briefly across Kirk's neck as he makes his way around the table to his spot. Kirk looks up over a glass of water.

"Well," Kirk says, "at least I accomplished something today. Even if you layabouts did nothing."

"Yes," McCoy says, voice dry, "thanks so much for mangling my hedges. Congratulations."

"Fuck off," Kirk says agreeably, and something tight between Christine's shoulder blades loosens and she sits back, bracing her feet on the rungs of the chair opposite.

* * *

The countryside at night is surprisingly noisy; one persistent cricket is chirping next to the window and flies are buzzing by the porch light and a dog is howling somewhere in the distance.

"Christ," McCoy says, throwing himself onto his favorite couch, the one that creaks and is shedding stuffing by the hour. "Vacation is exhausting."

Christine collapses next to him, lifting one of his arms to curl herself against his side. She almost falls off, but narrowly manages to keep herself on the couch, McCoy's hand pressed protectively into her stomach. "I concur," she says. His breath is warm on the back of her neck. "Also, my God, this thing is like sleeping on a plank of wood. Get new cushions."

"I like it the way it is," McCoy says.

"Story of your life," Kirk says. "Can I start a fire?"

He is sitting on the rug in front of the hearth, already pushing aside the grille.

"Oh," Christine says, watching him. "This is a new development. Along with having a violent death wish and a strange magnetic attraction to sheer cliffs and all those many strange sexual proclivities, you're also a pyromaniac. Add it to the list."

"Noted," McCoy says, voice a dull rumble at her back.

Kirk turns an outraged look on them both. "You're keeping a list?"

"I'm thinking of writing a case study," McCoy says gravely. "Or something. A Treatise on the Care and Treatment of Psychologically Fucked-Up Starship Captains."

"It's a long list," Christine explains.

Kirk is weighing the heavy iron poker in his hand.

"That thing hasn't been lit for a hundred years," McCoy says. "We're in the middle of one of the hottest spells in the last decade, and you want to have a weenie roast?"

"Technicalities," Kirk says breezily, but he lays aside the poker and sprawls out across the rug. "Fine, then. Anyone have any good ghost stories?"

Christine laughs, and McCoy says, "Well, actually…"

Kirk's eyes widen. "You're kidding," he says. "No, do not tell me this place is haunted. I do not want to know."

"You're not afraid, are you?" Christine teases. He grins back at her, and something heavy and ugly in her stomach twists, because if anyone ever had good reason to push away the ghosts of their past with both hands, it's Jim Kirk.

But he just says, "Afraid of the ghosts of generations of pathologically cranky and hypospray-happy McCoys? Wouldn't you be?"

"Fair enough," she says.

"But you know, they wouldn't be hypospray-happy McCoys, they would be needle-happy McCoys," McCoy says. "And they'd have lots of other arcane and nasty medical tools. And, oh, electroshock therapy, and big saws for cutting off limbs…"

"Oh my God, forget I ever mentioned it," Kirk says, aghast. "I'm never going to sleep in this place again."

* * *

They do go to sleep though, eventually. It is too hot for blankets, and all the windows in the main bedroom are thrown open, the threadbare old curtains lifting slightly in what little breeze there is.

Christine pushes her sweat-sticky hair off her neck and stares at the ceiling, the fine craftwork of the wrought-iron bedstead. She contemplates getting up to find McCoy's copy of _East of Eden_; she is tired, but too restless to sleep.

"I can hear you being awake," McCoy says from the darkness. "It is three in the morning. _Stop being awake_."

"Stop hogging all the pillows," she retorts.

"I don't have them, Jim does," he says.

Christine fingers the delicate antique lace of the coverlet, the fine linen beneath. She says into the silence, "Surely this bed should have rusted through by now."

"I was thinking that too," Kirk says drowsily from the foot of the bed, where he is surrounded by a fort of pillows.

"It's not original," McCoy says, flapping one hand in her general direction. "And both of you, shut up."

She catches his hand and kisses his knuckles. He makes a distracted noise that may be exasperated or may be affectionate, and she releases his hand.

"Just so we're all aware," Kirk says, sitting up, his hair wildly messy, "and forewarned, I am going to have a round two with the shrubs tomorrow."


End file.
